


Wouldn't Mind Dying

by pristineungift



Series: The Portamis Collection [3]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Coming Out, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, Oblivious Aramis, Pining Porthos, Pre-Slash, Realization, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:12:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pristineungift/pseuds/pristineungift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of a friend, Porthos comforts Aramis.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>One Poramis drabble for every episode</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Wouldn't Mind Dying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mmeguillotine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmeguillotine/gifts).



> This fic assumes that Porthos and Aramis know at least the basics of what happened between Athos and Milady.

On the day that Marsac died, it rained.

It rained when Aramis buried him, and it rained while Aramis wandered the streets, and it continued to rain well into the night, when he finally made his way home to his boarding house.

He liked it, the rain. It suited his mood. Soothed the ache a little, that even the heavens wept for a man so lost.

Who the lost man was, he didn’t know. It could have been himself or Marsac.

The knock that came at his door startled him, but it shouldn’t have. He knew before he moved to open it that it would be Porthos. Porthos had never been one to let him wallow.

Hair and beard still dripping, his boots squelching with water when he walked, he let Porthos in and returned to sitting on the bed.

Porthos looked him up and down and then went to poke up the fire. “Come over here and get dry. You’re getting the bedclothes wet and you look like a bilge rat.”

Aramis tried to smile, but all he could manage was a twisted grimace. He did as he was bid, welcoming the chance to follow orders. To stop thinking.

_Isn’t that what led to this in the first place?_

Snarling, he turned and kicked one of the spindly chairs that sat around the table in the center of the room. It fell over with a clatter, the noise doing nothing to quell his rage.

Porthos made no comment. He didn’t even flinch at the sound or show surprise at the fit of temper. Good, steady Porthos.

“You’re still dripping,” Porthos reminded him.

Aramis snorted and made quick work of taking off his boots and cloak, stripping until he was down to his shirt and trousers. He used his Musketeer blues to leech the water from his hair, then draped them over the fireplace grating to dry.

The thud of glass against wood made Aramis turn, and he saw that Porthos had just set a full bottle of grog down on the table.

He made a face, taking refuge in an old argument. “Oh, Porthos, no. Not grog. You could use it to strip paint from a canvas, and that’s the truth.”

Porthos smirked at him. “This’ll put some hair on your chest, Aramis. It’s time you started drinking like a real man.”

Aramis scoffed. “Real gentlemen drink wine.”

Abruptly, Porthos turned serious. “Like Athos?” he asked.

Aramis felt the blood drain from his face, all of it going to sit like a stone in his chest. Grabbing at the bottle of grog, he pulled the cork out with his teeth, spat it into the fire, and took a long pull. The taste made him hack and sputter, but almost immediately he felt a rush of warmth loosening his muscles – and his tongue.

He realized that he hadn’t eaten yet that day. He hadn’t noticed.

“Am I like Athos?” he asked, not really expecting an answer.

Porthos said, “I don’t know.”

Aramis took another pull of the grog, managing not to cough this time. He was tired. So tired.

He moved over to the bed and all but collapsed on it, his legs sprawling out before him. “‘You know this has to end here, Aramis.’ That’s what he said to me. ‘You know this has to end here.’”

Porthos came to sit next to him, his shoulder brushing Aramis’. He placed a hand on Aramis’ thigh, and his fingers were warm against rain chilled flesh. “You did what had to be done,” Porthos rumbled in an almost whisper. “You always do.”

A broken laugh bubbled up out of Aramis, sliding passed his lips like oiled glass. “I _am_ just like Athos. I killed my love for duty and honor and now I’m damned.”

There was a long pause. Then, “Your love?”

Aramis brought the bottle of grog to his mouth, swirling his tongue around the opening before drinking. “There was more than brotherhood, more than the debt of a life owed between Marsac and I,” he said once he could breathe again.

He had never admitted it before. Not even to himself. They had never acted on what went unspoken between them, but Aramis saw no point in denying it now. The church said it was a perversion, but then Aramis did many perverted things. What was one more?

And now Marsac was dead. His spirit had been murdered that night, the night of the slaughter, but his body had lived on until Aramis put lead through his heart.

He was the only survivor now.

“I’m alone,” he blurted without meaning to.

Porthos burst into a flurry of motion, knocking the bottle of grog to the floor and pulling Aramis into his arms. “ _Never_ ,” he hissed into Aramis’ face, their foreheads pressed together. “You are never alone.”

Aramis looked into Porthos’ eyes and thought to see disgust, or at least apprehension there. But instead there was a hope so fierce and bright that he was almost burned by it.

He turned away from that fire, not yet ready to face it, and buried his face in Porthos’ neck. And there, he found some comfort. For, breathing in the gunpowder and leather that made up his friend’s scent, Porthos’ heartbeat in his ear, he realized that he was being held just as he himself had held Marsac in those final moments.

And he thought, _I wouldn’t mind dying here_.


End file.
